I just downloaded the newest iPhone version last night. I love the new graphics, and I understand from the settings screen that the auto zoom will be restored at a later time (I do miss that though). The only bug that I have noticed is that you cannot select your level of play, everything defaults to "very easy". Thanks for all of your work brining one of my favourite PPC games to the iPhone!!

Hi
i don't agree with this "only" Bug Point.
Ok the graphic needed an update but i would like to See an Option to get back to the old graphic.
But thats not the Point. First of all how can i Select another difficul Level?
Secondly Why cant i Play all the maps? Some are Set to Gray and sherefor unselectable?
And finally did you changed the ai? Looks likeit is now attacking me in situations in that they ignored me in the last Version.

I agree with the previous poster. I have upgraded to the latest version on my iPod, and I am very disappointed - for the following reasons:

1. I used to be able to select any one of the 384 maps and play them at any level. Now most of the maps are greyed out. In effect, I have been downgraded from 384 maps to about 104 - so I have lost 200 maps. Unfair!

2. My playing level defaults to "Hard", and I can't change it. Very unfair - ridiculous, in fact!

3. I have lost the former colour scheme, and I now find that, although I have several colour schemes, I have trouble distinguishing the colours in some lights. I have no argument against increasing the number of colour schemes, but why did you take away the existing one? I can not see the reason for this change. Unfair!

I have played Slay for some years - now on the iPod and formerly on my iPaq. I hope that someone can help me get back the great functionality of the former version.

What I've tried to do in the latest update is make the game have more long term appeal by giving people a sense of achievement by seeing how far they can get down the difficulty table.

All the islands are now in difficulty order and when you complete any island in a row the next row becomes "unlocked". The first two rows are "Very Easy", next two are "Easy", next two are "Hard" and then all the rest are "Very Hard". Your old scores should have been maintained so if you completed any of the later islands on "Very Hard" all the islands before that and the next row should be available to play on.

If people really don't like this I could add an option to not put the islands in difficulty order so that will basically put the game back to the way it was. I just thought it would be more fun to see how far you can get rather than pick random islands. I'll also add an option to have no texture on the hexagons if people think that will make

Thanks for explaining your reasoning for the changes. I understand what you tried to do. And it was probably welcomed by some of your customers.

I have to say that the game is now far less playable for me - I am not a game player who likes to work hard to complete a game, so the challenge that you set now, which is to succeed at the Very Hard level before I get access to the rest of the rows, will turn me off the game. If I want a Very Hard challenge, I'll do more of my normal daily work!

So, please:

1. Give me the option of having the game the way that it was before in terms of having access to at least all the 384 maps that I paid for. As I said, I now have access to only a few maps - far fewer than I paid for.

2. Give me back the original colour scheme as one of the several available.

Sean, thanks for clarifying ... I didn't realize how the islands unlocked. (It just so happened one of the few islands I'd completed was island 395, so the final row is the only locked row for me.)

I found the old color scheme to be easier for me. If it were available as an option, that would be great, but I can play with the classic colors as well.

I liked the ability to be able to select a difficulty on each island, but for a different reason than others have mentioned: I prefer a strong challenge, and I liked to see how many islands I could beat on Very Hard (the same as I did on the other versions) ... but it was nice to be able to drop down in difficulty so I could try to defeat all the islands even if not on the highest difficulty level.

I had already done 274 islands on Very Hard, and by conincidence that included Island 468 (the last island) so everything was available to me.

My tupence worth:

1) I always play on Very Hard, and only if I fail a few times on Very Hard do I move to Hard for an island.
2) Progression is not the thing for me. I just enjoy playing in sequence (always on Very Hard). Its nice to get an easy island after a hard one. Lucky dip.
3) As it stands, I would find little challenge in going back to fill in the gaps on the easy rows as I know them to be far too easy for me to play. Previously, I would never know how easy or hard an island was and so would enjoy the challenge (or the joy of a quick victory).
4) I agree with the others that some of the colours are too close now. Makes it hard to see who-is-who.
5) I would actually like some more islands

ah ok then trying to Play One of the last few Islands was the problem.

But what i still can't understand is Why can't i Play everything up to 338? I woult say i solved less then 25% of all the Levels on my Touch.

And Even harder to understand is the fact that you still have the icons for the easy hard and very hard, Even if the Levels should Be ( for example ) only easy. I have at least One of every degrees in the First few Levels, shouldn't they all changed to easy?

Anyway i would say that the system should Be changed back to the old system. Let every user Select how they would like to Play the Game. Sometimes i wanna Play an easy Game and sometimes i really Need something more complicated. But i can understand Why you invented the New Way.
Maybe a combination of both could Be good. Something like:
- only 50% of the Maps can Be selected if not all of the others are solved (applyed to the Dach of the old Island Groups)
- some Islands Need to Be solved in a specific way (e.g. Hard and less then 20 turns) to activate another Map.
But i guess thats more or less the Same like the campain idea i Read in another topic.

How Ever thanks for developing this Game, maybe that was only ? shock for me because i missed to Read some of the update information, befor applying the update:-)

I am still disappointed with the upgrade. I paid for a certain number of maps, for each of which I could set the difficulty level - so I had 384 maps multiplied by 4 levels. Now I have a set of maps for which I have only 1 level that I can play it at = far fewer maps, even if I can unlock all the Very Hard rows. And all my choice has been taken away from me.

How is that an upgrade? I now have about 10 - 15% of the game that I had before this "upgrade".

And I can see nothing in the game information in the iTunes about this aspect of the "upgrade". If I had seen that this was going to happen, I would never have upgraded - again, my choice was taken away from me.

I am sorry to keep griping, but I used to regard this as one of the best games that I had bought. Not now!!

OK, I'm really sorry that lots of people don't like the new way I've done the high score table!

What I'll do is a quick update which will let you double tap on the high score table's title and the high score table will go back to the way it was. It will take 2 weeks for Apple to approve the update for release on to the AppStore though.

I thought it would be more fun to know roughly how difficult an island would be so it would be more of a challenge to see how far down the table you could get.

Sean O'Connor wrote:OK, I'm really sorry that lots of people don't like the new way I've done the high score table!

What I'll do is a quick update which will let you double tap on the high score table's title and the high score table will go back to the way it was. It will take 2 weeks for Apple to approve the update for release on to the AppStore though.

I thought it would be more fun to know roughly how difficult an island would be so it would be more of a challenge to see how far down the table you could get.

Thank you. I too do not like the new play style as I always choose very hard. I do like the new graphics. Also I would like to suggest an enhancement, a custom mode, where I could set the level of difficulty per trip. It appears to me that brown is always the more aggressive so I end up taking them out first and then it is a cake walk to do the rest. I would like to have more of a challenge by ratcheting up the AI of the other tribes.

All in all this is still one of the best games you have. Can't wait to try the other iPhone games out.

Two weeks was too long, so I did some googling and found a way to restore the old version of the game, Unfortunately I lost all my saved stats in the process. ;(
One third of the levels completed on Hard, all gone. ;(
For those that desperate, and have not emptied their trash, here is the URL to the instructions:
http://iphone-application-developer.blo ... ng-we.html(Step 3 is the killer...)